Enhancing confidence in using computational thinking skills via playing a serious game: A case study to increase motivation in learning computer programming

Computer Science (CS) is a profession that positively impacts every single area of society without which today's world would come to a complete halt. Yet, there is a consensus that CS has serious conundrums particularly in attracting students, low motivation for learning computer programming an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE access Vol. 8; p. 1
Main Author: Kazimoglu, Cagin
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.01.2020
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects:
Computational thinking
Computer & video games
Computer languages
Computer programming
Confidence
Decision making
Education
Educational software
game-based learning
Games
gamification
Impact analysis
Learning
Motivation
Programming profession
serious games
Skills
Students
Syntactics
video game design
Visualization
ISSN:2169-3536, 2169-3536
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Computer Science (CS) is a profession that positively impacts every single area of society without which today's world would come to a complete halt. Yet, there is a consensus that CS has serious conundrums particularly in attracting students, low motivation for learning computer programming and developing computational thinking (CT) skills. New motivational methods are needed to take the attention of students and adapt to their learning patterns as how people learn have changed drastically over the last two decades. To address these issues, video games and video game-based tools are proposed as a primary approach for motivating and supporting students in developing their skills in CT and support their learning of introductory programming. This research is concerned with the capture of statistical evidence on the educational effectiveness of playing a serious game specifically designed to enhance the development of CT skills to facilitate learning introductory computer programming. A total of 190 students were invited to participate in a quasi-experimental pre-post study for the purpose of analyzing the impact of an adhoc game to students' confidence in learning programming constructs and using their skills in CT. All students were studying a CS degree at the time and they were all registered to a first-year computer programming course. 151 out of 190 students successfully completed the study and the findings suggest that a) the intrinsic motivation to learn programming; b) students' perception of their knowledge and their tangible knowledge in key programming constructs (i.e. programming sequence, methods, decision making and loops); and c) students' confidence in using their CT skills were all statistically and significantly improved after playing the game. Additionally, students perceived computer programming significantly less difficult in their post study responses when compared to their pre study responses.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:2169-3536
2169-3536
DOI:10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3043278